


dreams are the enemy of the guilty

by Profundus



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:35:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27358132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Profundus/pseuds/Profundus
Summary: Tobio dreams on his midnight run, not knowing the nightmare looms just around the corner.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	dreams are the enemy of the guilty

Tobio runs.

Always runs when something's on his mind, weighing heavily in his head until he barely gets it off the pillow at dawn.

Runs as if his thoughts are still chasing him, haven't long since caught up already and are leering in every crevice of the gloomy streets and alleyways now, whisper whisper from the shadows, whisper whisper in his mind.

_Oh but he hates you and you never understood because he was always better, always smarter, always faster, always superior but now oh now oh now you get it, this hatred that burns so hot fire is freezing on your skin_

His eyes are glassy.

Tobio, the oblivious. Whole, undamaged, except for his pride, and pride heals slowest of all and hurts the most where nobody sees.

_You looked up to him, looked up to a man who can only thrive on rotten hopes, he feeds off of your disappointed face and eats your dreams little by little and spits you out like flavorless gum he doesn't want anymore, he never wanted you_

Well, now Tobio doesn't want anymore either. He's wanted for years now, wanted to be alike, wanted to be close, wanted to be friends, wanted, wanted, wanted wanted wanted _wanted—_

He stops, gasps, coughs, chokes up the bitterness in his mouth. There's blood, too, but the ache in his tongue leaves no question of its source. His calves burn, his lungs contract, swimming in their own surplus of oxygen. He runs again.

There's a scream that has been scratching at the back of his throat like a caged animal, so desperate to escape, so wild, so scared, so starved for freedom, the freedom Tobio withholds from it, from himself, so only the whispers remain in nooks and crannies all around. Behind every beam of light down the road looms the darkness.

Tobio, the oblivious. He runs right into it.

_Remember that time he almost hit you, eyes so wide you thought they'd break, little cracks and little tears like chipped sea glass in the sand and the cold of his hand mere inches from your face, slammed away just by Iwaizumi-san and you didn't understand because you only asked to learn, not knowing that he's scared to teach_

He shakes the whispers off, droplets of sweat in a glistening crown around his head. The crown he's worn for far too long, but what's a king to an emperor? What's a brute warrior to a time-honored tactician who knows where the sword will strike before it's drawn from the sheath? What's a newcomer to a veteran?

Running, running, past the whispers, past the screams. Tobio runs like somebody's waiting, reaching out for him impatiently from around a corner, whisper whisper from the shadows.

_Find me, find me, I'm here, find me_

He's out of air and out of strength, sees only the broken record replay of the ball hitting the court, again, again, again, again.

They're celebrating to the exact same memory in Aoba Johsai right now and Tobio doesn't understand how anyone in the world could be laughing while he's running his body down to sinew and dry bones with anger and frustration.

_You wish he'd been the one to stand there losing, staring at the ball, hating, crying, cursing, howling because a few centimeters to the left or right or front and someone would've caught it and that last point wouldn't have been scored_

Yes, yes he wants that, more than he's ever wanted to be alike, wanted to be close, wanted to be friends.

He wants Tooru Oikawa to know the pain of losing against him, wants to wipe that shit-eating grin from his shit-eating face and pocket it, keep it safe until he sees him on the street and then put it on so he knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that smirk that boils the hell out of Tobio's blood.

_That humiliation, that shame, that pain, that disgust, you don't want it, right, no no you want him to have it, want to see it in his eyes like you see it in your eyes in the mirror, you want him to feel just as awful and embarrassed and worthless, right_

"Yes!"

Tobio, the oblivious. He shouts it into the night like it's going to change anything, like that dream will be magically come true.

Oh, but dreams are the enemy of the guilty.

He stops running, barely even walks, more like stumbles down the street in a mess of wails and sobs – a pained animal singing with the silence.

So sick of being inferior, so sick of always coming second, so sick of being hated for a reason he can't understand because when has he taken something from him? When has he robbed him of something rightfully his? What else has he cost him other than a few of his nerves? What power does he hold over Tooru Oikawa that makes him so afraid?

Tobio, the oblivious. He almost trips over him.

The shadows crowd them into an alleyway where no glint from the street lamps dares to follow and Tobio's grateful because the sight is terrifying in the dark, unbearable in the light.

"No, no, no, no," he sobs, trips for real this time, crawls forward on his hands and knees. "No, no, I didn't mean it, I didn't, I didn't!"

He's crying his heart and soul and eyes out, so hard he has to throw up, but what does it matter, now of all times.

Be careful what you wish for, they say when they see a shooting stars, because wishes can come true. Nobody told him to be careful about his dreams, too.

"What kind of punishment is this?" Tooru whispers, voice stifled by the sleeve of his jacket that he holds to his burst lip. "Fuck off, Kageyama. Fuck off, fuck off."

He's hysteric, his calm shell merely an act he's repeated and perfected so meticulously throughout the years that nobody would know the difference if the circumstance weren't downright betraying him, if he weren't—

_feeling so humiliated shamed pained awful disgusted embarrassed worthless and all that you dreamed of and now it's reality and the dream was so much better, never like this, not like this, oh good heaven, not like this_

"Tooru," he sobs because that's the only thing he can think of, the only thing he's seeing. "Tooru, Tooru, no!"

This is no mighty emperor, no tactician, no superior, no veteran. Just Tooru.

"Don't touch me," Tooru whispers and backs away, shaking like he expects a hit and then he's crying too, silent and upright, but he's crying.

No, no, it doesn't matter because his life is already in ruins as much as his body, littered with bruises and sweat and blood and Tobio sits back and stares at the whispers in the dark that leer and snarl like famished wolves.

"Hospital," he says in a state of delirium that hasn't even announced itself, pats his pockets for the phone he knows he has. "You need... the hospital. Police."

"No!"

Tooru kicks his hand and Tobio stares at it in senseless wonder.

"Stay away, don't touch me, don't call anyone!"

He curls up, heaving and screaming, but there's no comfort, nothing that could ever make him feel assured Tobio won't continue what he's lived through, what has shattered his world in a matter of minutes, seconds, the blink of an eye.

Tooru Oikawa is kneeling before the pieces of his frail existence and they're crumbling to dust beneath the very tips of his fingers.

Beside him in the dissolving mess sits Tobio and watches because he can't touch, can't help, can't even speak, can only keep quiet and try not to breathe because the smallest sound will do more harm than good.

Away from Tooru's eyes, he lifts his phone and hopes the number is the same since Junior High and then he's whimpering to Hajime to come, just come please, no matter how late, how far, how long, because _Tooru._

"Tooru? What about him? He left the party with Ushijima earlier. Sounded serious."

Ushijima. Always after Tooru, one way or another, always being turned down and belittled and discredited. Apparently, Tobio isn't the only dreamer. He presses his forehead to his knees and dissolves into violent sobs.

Tobio, the oblivious, forgets how much it hurts to love.

Hajime cries before he even looks at Tooru, cries even harder when he's refused, shoved away, kicked and punched and hit and bitten and scratched and screamed at, but he holds Tooru close and rocks him in his arms.

"I'll kill him," he whispers, but it sounds weak through the tears, weak and raw. "I'll kill him, I'll kill him."

Tobio doesn't ask. He doesn't get up either, even as a car stops in the middle of the road with screeching tires and two people rush into the alleyway. The man picks Tooru up, gentle, loving, but Hajime keeps clinging to his hand and the woman covers her face in anguish.

They take him away, collecting what little fragments of his life are still whole.

Tobio keeps sitting where he is, hands on his knees - a little shadow in the vast darkness, dreaming.

**Author's Note:**

> I am SORRY everyone but I am tired and I wrote it on a whim and I am hurt and in pain and it kills myself to write stuff like this but now my Dark Muse™ is satisfied


End file.
